Observations, or How Team One Realized About Sam and Jules
by Joani
Summary: From the various points of view of Team One, how they each realized that Sam and Jules were together before. Takes place up to Priority of Life. Mostly humour.
1. Observations: Winnie

Writing Flashpoint fanfic is even more interesting when you hear Sam Braddock advertising cars. :-P

I own nothing!

A/N: Being a secretary is a unique position: you get to see everything that's not being said, especially when everyone else isn't really looking. Ergo, this little plot bunny came to roost in my mind, and developed it. At this time, I am hoping to expand to at least the main characters of Team One (with of course the two love-birds excepted) watching JAM in their fluctuating relationship.

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Winnie is the unsung hero of Team One (and Teams Two, Three, and Four). She sits at her desk, day in and out, and watches the teams run, walk, or very occasionally at Christmas-time, crawl past. She likes to keep an eye out for her 'kids' (she was born a Cancer, it's the mothering instinct) as they take on the good, the bad, and the strange of Toronto.

So she's pretty sure she is the first to see the changes in Jules' body language. They're the kind of changes that happen when Jules is seeing someone – her eyes flicker to the door more often, her breath hitches a little more frequently, and as Sam hands her a coffee one morning, Winnie sees the ever so faint touch between their fingers and subsequent shiver.

Sam's body language, on the other hand, gets tenser. Winnie wonders if it's a military thing; he's always been tight and nearly unreadable, but now he's ramrod stiff. The only time she sees him relax is when Jules exits her change room, like he is relieved that she came out the door.

Then Jules is shot.

When the sniper returns, Sam is still stone-stiff, but Jules is even more so. The way she never directly takes the coffee from Sam indicates that it's over to Winnie, and it makes her a bit sad. She'd never admit to being a romantic, but her friends are unhappy and Winnie will admit to caring about them.

Jules doesn't relax at all when Steve starts hanging around, but now her eyes flicker to Sam so quickly that Winnie dismisses it for a few weeks. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is when Winnie gets the clue, and she watches the tension between Sam and Steve, Sam and Jules, and Jules and Steve, and feels a bit sad for all involved. Then she gets a call from Jules about shots fired in a restaurant, and almost hates to put the call through to Sam et al.

At the end of the day, delivering the note to Sam, Winnie quietly watches him from her post. She curses when he puts the note into his pocket; she didn't really expect to read it, but had hoped for the chance to snoop a little. The little smile on his face as he turns away, though, says a lot to her.

Then HMCS Toth lands in the middle of everything and the ripples (waves, really) threaten to swamp everything. When Winnie gets her own psych evaluation, she manages to pass any nervousness off to the inexperience of being behind a desk and not in the field. But really, she's hoping Toth doesn't ask her anything about two specific teammates. She hopes her status as nearly-secretary removes her from any suspicion of knowing.

As the ripples settle down, Winnie goes back to watching her teams, and has to stop herself from smiling at the body language of said teammates.

Well, what do you think of that? Gentle touches while exchanging coffees that would be hidden from the rest of Team One are pretty plain to Winnie, if she keeps her head down and pretends to be part of the wall.

Winnie knows the rules, she knows this is not permitted, but as she listens over the radio on calls, she never heard anything that would imply that they are putting each other ahead of the job or the team. She tells herself that the moment she gets an indication of that, she'll have a chat with Greg, but as Winnie spies cute Bryan from Team Four walk past, she can only imagine how hard it must be for Sam and Jules.


	2. Observations: Ed

I should mention, I'm not entirely up on my cannon, so if I get a fact wrong, please let me know. I own nothing!

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The moment Ed sees that pretty-boy face, he knows there could be trouble. The cocky attitude Sam displays as he swaggered (really, there is no other word for it) after the Commander cements that impression. Damn kid is a hot-shot, good-looking and knows it, professional with enough attitude to piss pretty much everyone off.

The Timmy's run is sweet, sweet revenge for such a fun first impression – act like a little shit, get treated like a little shit. The fact that his double-double is still hot upon arrival impresses Ed just a little.

Sam's constant professionalism, despite being relatively new to police-work, raises a few eyebrows. Sure, negotiation training is a slow, laborious process with many moments where Ed's tempted to shoot himself instead of his 'hostages', but the kid's trying.

It's one night when they're all out for drinks that Ed starts catching on. Sam and he close down the bar that night because the next day is a day off. They're only a little tipsy (either Sam has a water IV that's keeping him hydrated or he's pouring most of his third pint into the plant behind him without Ed catching on), but when Sam is dissecting the day, he mentions Jules' name with a sort of wistful tone that Ed only remembers Greg having when Joanne had just left him.

Oh shit.

Then Jules gets shot. During her recovery period, Ed notices that Sam is very helpful, and grits his teeth. Since Jules is technically not on the team in an operative manner, Ed keeps his mouth shut, but swears that one toe out of line will send him to Greg. Dealing with Donna instead of Jules is just one more uncomfortable situation.

By the time Jules is back, Sam is no longer mentioning Jules, wistfully or otherwise. Ed's sort of glad that he can stop watching so carefully, but still winces when Steve shows up at SIU to take Jules out. _C'mon, Jules_, he thinks to himself, _That's just mean. _He's happy that Jules is dating someone, anyone else, but Sam doesn't need his nose rubbed in it, eager puppy as he may sometimes be.

Ed loses track of everything when Toth arrives because while the longevity of Sam and Jules surprises him, it's Greg he's more worried about. He sincerely hopes that the two kids have learned a lesson, but now he's trying to keep Greg on track as he can, a sense of normalcy. Oh yeah, and his baby is colicky and Sophie's not happy with him and everything that's happening at work, as it takes him away, and it's just one more card in this fragile house so the worry about Jules and Sam, the open-and-shut case, gets put away.

It stays gone until Jules is in a room filled with anthrax and Sam is frantically waiting at the door that only Ed's sense of right dictates that Sam really shouldn't rush in and save Jules first. By this point, he is just so tired of this that when Sam saves the civilian, Ed glares into a camera that he's sure Toth is monitoring. _This is my team, right or wrong, and I'll be damned if you take that from me. _There's so much unhappiness right now that Ed just wants to have some hope that it will work out and things can be fine.

When Toth is finally finished with them, so to speak, Ed just feels relieved that he can stop worrying about the Sam-and-Jules dilemma as being out of his hands and focus on everything else. And he thinks, maybe, as Ed observes the two arriving separately to the picnic, they could work out in the end.


	3. Observations: Spike

I wanted to put Wordy or Raf (as of yet, undecided) before this, but Spike was an easier story, so I decided to write him first. I had fun writing this, and it's a bit of tribute to my roommie who has been so helpful with certain questions.

Also, wasn't the Oct. 4 episode great? It reminds me of Mr. Paetkau talking on Vancouver's UR about the Canucks play-offs run - "I set a car on fire on Queen St., and no one joined in!" It's on Youtube.

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Spike likes to think of himself as a lover _and_ a fighter in one cute, slightly goofy package. He's also a bit of a practical joker, and as the tension rises when Jules returns to work, he decides that a harmless little prank is just what Dr. Spike is calling for.

He wonders if he shouldn't get Wordy or Sam involved, but Wordy's busy and Sam has been over at the hospital with Jules – Spike just doesn't know if Sam would spill or not.

But what prank to pull? The brilliance of cream cheese in Jules' Kevlar vest is so tempting, but Spike just knows that wouldn't end well for him or his skin, unless he wants it flayed and mounted on Jules' living room wall. Upon a bit more thought, Spike thinks he's got it figured – he'll outline her locker in pink. Pink with pink trim.

But Spike has to wait for Jules' first day off, which takes a while because she's so determined to prove her spot that she's in almost every day, working out, or there's another woman in the Jules' Locker. He's pretty sure the ladies are starting to watch him from the corner of their eyes, with how frequently he's hanging around that forbidden door.

Finally, just finally, Spike gets to make his move. Jules is on her day off, on some date with this Steve guy, and no one is paying attention. Sam is looking pretty moody, Spike thinks to himself, but he's got more important things to think about. Like the three small cans of paint he's stashed away in his work-out bag.

He times it so Winnie has just come back from the bathroom. He slips into the room with his duffel bag and quickly removes the first can. His brush starts to stroke pink over Jules' locker door, up and down. It's not looking perfect, but it's looking pink, and that's all he cares about.

In fact, things are going so well that Spike decides to up his game. Easing one door open, Spike starts to remove Jules' personal things – not that there's a lot. Two photos of her family, one of the team, and he stops to admire it for a moment, noting the line of them – Greg hovering to their left, Jules strong and confident, Sam's hand resting on her shoulder as he beams at the camera, even a little outline as tall as Sam with an arrow pointing 'Lew' at it.

Spike is shaken from his reverie by footsteps going by, and he hurriedly picks up the paintbrush again to finish the inside of one door and let the quick-dry paint do its work before fixing the photos back up. When he's done both doors, he decides he's got just enough time to paint the accents before he should call it quits. As he's adding the finishing touches to that, a small shine catches his eye, and he looks up. What his eye caught is the shine off of a regimental pin, the 'PPCLI' a little worn around the edges.

Now, if Spike remembers correctly, PPCLI is part of the Canadian army, and Sam was Canadian army, and what would Jules be doing with a pin like that? Could it be someone else's? But PPCLI is out west, isn't it?

Anyway, he has to finish this job, and manages to tuck all the incriminating implements away just as he hears Winnie's voice calling for Team One; something about a call from Jules.

Spike escapes the women's locker room and hides his duffel away before answering the call, and feels almost guilty when he hears that Jules is in trouble, but won't she like the pretty colour when she gets back?

As a matter of fact, it's Sam who warns him that Jules is hunting for whoever painted her locker and that she's following upon some leads. The idea of the somewhat pint-sized Jules being angry with him is more terrifying than he expected. The shorter they are, the more level they are with uncomfortable places.

It's Natalie who gives the game away. One too many 'subtle' comments when they're out for a get-to-know-you drink that Spike really can't miss – Natalie is cute, and she can hold her liquor for the most part, but she likes to think she's sly after about the fourth bottle. Spike doesn't interrupt or demand clarification, and he smiles with the little hidden knowledge that the pin is Sam's, given at one point or another as the colloquially named 'sweetheart pin'. Spike isn't about to say anything – it's not affecting the team situation, and anyhow, he's dating the man's sister. Rock meets hard place, perhaps at Jules' house (though which is which, Spike doesn't want to consider), but as Natalie's smiling face looks up into his, he figures he can give them a break.


	4. Observations: Wordy

I just want to thank: everyone who reviews, you let me know I'm doing this right; Flashpoint Wikia, which helps me keep my timelines straight (though if you see something wrong, please let me know); Tirsh, for her encouraging words overall; the actors, who are so wonderful in their roles... you know, I think Ellen Degeneres was right, it _is_ easier to list the people you're not going to thank.

As mentioned in the last chapter, I was sure this would be a hard chapter to write because I don't know Wordy quite as well. It turned out being a bit easier than I expected, mainly because I have something else I'm procrastinating on. I hope I've done his character service here. Please let me know what you think with regards to this. Ddid I get Wordy right?

This is also the penultimate chapter, and I'm marveling that I'm on my way to finally finishing a story here (or a collection of stories). Whew! Also, I love these separator lines!

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Wordy always had a soft spot for Jules. He admits he'd be terrified if his girls grew up to be like her, but then thinks that he'd rather they emulate her than some screwed-up celebrity out there. Everyone knows he misses SRU, and he's thankful that his new team at Guns'n'Gangs understands this and tries to make him feel welcome while understanding that the shake in his hands isn't just the Parkinson's – grief translates in different ways.

There is one thing that he hasn't quite reconciled with, in his new career direction: the sideways glances he gets when either Sam or Jules walks by. He's not entirely sure what that's about because Wordy's quite aware that, after Jules got hurt (the word shot is more accurate, but too _real_ when thinking that she could be his girls' idol), anything between those two was firmly called off.

One night, after he's seen the dreaded Toth around again, G'n'G go out for beers, and someone finally gets around to asking the question: "Did you hear about Callaghan and Braddock?"

Wordy tries to look unconcerned as he shrugs, but inside, he wonders what's going on. "No." After a moment of silence, he continues, "You know teammates can't..."

The luckless Sherbrook, who fenced the question, cuts him off, "Yeah, but we heard through the grapevine that they were going together."

Wordy groans in his head. Cops: they gossip worse than Spike's mom. Late to the table, too. It's time to put an end to this.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asks, staring down Sherbrook, his sotto voce somehow echoing in his ears, around the room. The rest of his table is quiet. "You know they can't, and they wouldn't. Callaghan is a consummate professional, and Braddock is the straightest arrow I know."

That seems to be the end of it for tonight, as Sherbrook backs down, a confused, tipsy haze in his eyes. The sarge is already bringing another subject up, something about a school that's been requesting an officer for some assembly they're putting on. Everyone groans at this, knowing that someone will go in, talk for an hour about how bad gangs are, and walk out, having left nothing in the kids' mind except an impression of another adult telling them what's best for them. Everyone hates that job so much that rumours of Callaghan and Braddock are forgotten.

But when Wordy gets home that night, he wonders a little about what he heard. He's seen how attentive Sam was when Jules was _hurt_, and he imagines that's a little like how Shelley and he would be if he got hurt. He even loses a bit of sleep over it, though Shelley next to him seems to have no such concerns.

The next day, when Wordy gets in, the news about Jules trapped in a room of anthrax is making the rounds, and he's suddenly thankful for gossipy cops as he gets the whole story. Jules in a room of anthrax, already injured, and Sam still followed policy. In one breath, Wordy feels betrayed and upset that his teammates, his family-away-from-family, have gone behind his back, and in the next, he feels a small euphoria. They may have done so, but they still followed the rule, and Jules is just as okay as she would have been if she and Sam hadn't been together. And she'll be okay.

Maybe they can be okay together.


End file.
